B2B publisher Incisive Media has completed its redundancy consultation, with between 20 and 30 editorial jobs being axed – about half the number initially proposed.
The company announced at the beginning of October that it was looking to make about 50 redundancies across the group. The move followed the restructuring of its business technology group, which resulted in the merger of technology weeklies IT Week and Computing.
Incisive also reorganised the editorial teams across the business technology group – including online titles VNUnet and The Inquirer – according to ‘content specialism’rather than publication.
Managing director Graham Harman said the whole of Incisive had now been reviewed, with similar changes made in other departments.
Related
He said a temporary recruitment freeze and a number of resignations during the consultation period had helped reduce the redundancy figure to between 20 and 30.
“We’ve taken that model [used in the business technology group] and seen where it can be applied and if it’s applicable to other parts of the business,” he said.
“It won’t be to all, but I do think that they’ve taken if not all of the model then some of it and applied it to the thinking of how we interface with our clients’ needs.”
Incisive’s financial services division – which is made up of eight brands including Investment Week and Mortgage Solutions – has seen its editorial staff reduced from 43 to 33. There were eight resignations and two redundancies.
Editorial staff have been put into four “channels’– pensions, asset management, independent financial advice and mortgage and savings – working across all magazines and websites.
Under the new regime, the editor of Professional Advisor will also oversee IFA Online and Investment Week. The editor of IFA Online has become the group’s news editor and the editor of Investment Week has taken redundancy and gone freelance.
Group editorial director Lawrence Gosling said: “Within the eight brands there was crossover within readerships quite considerably. For example, we had two pension titles with two dedicated teams.
‘We had editorial teams writing for similar audiences and often talking to the same contacts all the way through the week.
“What we’ve found is in effect our own publications, even though they would sync with each other, would compete with each other, so what we decided was to work in a similar way to the Telegraph and Guardian have moved to.
“The journalists, rather than being aligned to a print brand, are put into content channels.”
In a letter to staff, Incisive group human resources director Stuart McLean said: ‘It has been a particularly difficult and uncomfortable time for a number of our people, some directly and a great many indirectly.
‘We have lost some very talented people although thankfully not the number we envisaged at the outset of this process, mainly through the recruitment freeze and good local management.”
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
